As The Next Page Turns
by Micaela Scarlett Hart
Summary: Continuation of Gayle Foreman's "Just One Day" duo-logy. First installment goes right from the end of "Just One Year." If there are additional chapters this story will be conspired of vignettes into Willem and Ally's life post series. Enjoy.


_I Kiss Allyson_

_I complete the history that came before us, and in doing so, begin one all our own._

_Double Happiness: I get it now._

What I don't expect is the fire. It courses through my body and on its heels is insane lust and desperation. She is kissing me back, and I don't know if this is what she had hoped would happen when she knocked on my door but it is, and she is, and it's all I can do to hold myself in check, to not slam her against the wall and crash myself into her. Her hands are in my hair, pulling me down and she is on her toes to meet me, my arms around her middle in a bone crushing hold so that it feels briefly that fate will never be able to separate us two again. I feel the torrents as the emotions slam through us both and it's enough just to hold on through the assault of all the genuine _missing_ of her I had felt throughout this past year. I realize that in the breaks where our lips part for air and mine find her neck, her cheek, any part of her - that she is saying my name. _Willem, Willem, Willem_ in breathy, throaty whimpers.

I hoist her up by the waist, I need a better angle, and she curls her legs around me; twining onto my hips like a vine as I press her against the wall. I feel tears on my cheeks and I don't know if they are mine, or hers, or what because everything in my world is consumed by her. By_ Allyson._ Which is so right that it feels like a hole in my gut I hadn't realized had been so monstrous had closed and that everything felt whole in a way I had only known once before. In Paris. Only this time the knowledge of that filled empty space in my gut doesn't scare me the way it did then. It doesn't make me want to run, it makes me want to be closer.

I need to breathe or I might pass out but I don't want to let her go. I pull my face back panting, and bring my hands up to push her dark hair back from her face. Her arms are still around my neck and she is also breathing hard, just as hard as me and it is enough just to breathe for a moment. I feel the tears on my cheeks and know that yes, they are mine, but from the tears on hers I suspect some are also hers. She is looking at me, and there is such joy in her eyes. There is also sadness, and I know her gaze is reflected back again in mine. She is trying to speak I realize, but all I have been able to do is drink her in, her smell, her taste, the feel of her body against mine - familiar, and distant both at once.

"Willem, Willem…" It sounds like a mantra, like the prayer my mom spoke to me in Mumbai all those months ago.

"Alyson. Allyson, Allyson…" I realize that I too have been saying this aloud the whole time. It rolls off my tongue like it was always meant to be there. I briefly flash back to Cancun, at the top of the ruins with that little tourist family. The mother had commanded her little girl named Allyson at the same time that I wondered which name it was I should call out. I lean my forehead against hers, and I feel the pounding of her heart. She is real, warm, and important here in my arms. I can only think one thing, and it is out of my mouth without a caution.

"Thank You. Oh god, Thank You."

She slams back into me, and its like being given oxygen after escaping from a burning building. Pure, live giving. I carry her to the bed, and lay her down. Her hands go to my belt and words are unnecessary, I understand. The desire to be closer is overwhelming, to feel every inch of her skin pressed against mine is all I want. I undo the belt as her hands move to tug my t-shirt over my head. She does and her hands roam down my chest sending shocks down into every nerve ending on my body. I pull her shirt over her head in response. So it goes on, until there is nothing but skin pressed against skin, heat radiating in waves formed by pure intensity and finally, when we come together, it_ finally_ feels like coming _home_.

* * *

Afterwards we lie in the bed tangled in each other, she has her arms twined around me, her head on my chest. I have one arm around her shoulders, the other runs through her dark hair. Neither one of us has said anything, and I know we have to talk soon. I don't think it's wrong to just want to be here with her, but I can feel reality and time creeping up around the edges of our bubble. I feel her shift and then she is looking at me, then she is speaking and it is the last thing I ever want to hear her say.

"I have a flight that is supposed to leave in two hours." Panic seizes me before I can even process what it is she has really said, I tighten my arms around her.

"You're leaving? Now?" It comes out as a whisper, and I know she can hear my panic in those words. She moves before I even finish speaking, swiftly bringing a hand up to my cheek.

"Shhhhh… no, Willem, no, I promise I am not going anywhere right now." She quiets me soothingly. She looks at me quietly for another moment. "I do need to go make a call." I nod, and suddenly I remember being on the phone with Linus about tonights show before she had been on the other side of the door.

"Me too." reluctantly I sit up, and she disentangles herself, and pulls on my discarded shirt from the floor. I like it, I like her in my clothes.

"Is there somewhere private I can go?" She asks. I make myself nod and point back toward the living room even though I don't want her to leave from where I can see her. As soon as she walks through the door I pull on pants and I fumble for my own phone and dial back Linus's phone number. He answers and we talk. But even as we talk, this phone call which hd been so important to me only an hour ago is an afterthought now. It doesn't matter though, because they want me to stay on as Orlando, and I will. I hang up the phone and creep towards the door that connects the bedroom and the living room. I hear talking on the phone, but I don't listen because that's not the point. All I need is to be able to hear her voice, because as long as I can then I know that she is still here.

When she finishes her phone call a few minutes later I rush to the other side of the room so she doesn't think I was eavesdropping on her call, but I probably end up looking like a frightened cat judging from the look she throws me. The silence we experience at that moment isn't really awkward so much as calculated. I can tell she is picking her next words carefully.

"So I guess you remember me?" It is joke but it is also the absolute last thing I expect to come out of her mouth, but the words almost have my stomach turning in horror. The words of the email from Tor come back to me, maybe she truly does think I had pulled a runner. I cross the room back towards her. I pull her back to the bed and sit her on the edge. I kneel in front of her, I want her know how sincere I am.

"Allyson…" I trail off because there are no words to describe the emotions that have assailed me this past year, how much I truly have missed her and thought of her.

"I saw you last night." I look at her. She had seen the show last night, a year and a day but once again it had been Shakespeare's comedic timing that had brought her back into my life. There is that sadness in her eyes again. "It felt like you were speaking only to me, and I know that may seem odd, but that is how it felt." I want to tell her that it's not odd, because I was talking to her, every word was for her. "I have spent all year looking for you Willem." My heart is beating furiously, She strokes my face, "but what I want to know is if you wanted to be found." She fingers my cheek, the one with the scar, and I know that I have started crying again.

"Allyson, to be found by you is more than any joy any accident has ever brought me," and now the words do come. In torrents they flow out of me. How much I want her. How much I have missed her. How I was going to come back a year and a day ago. When I take a breath I look up at her.

"I am sorry I didn't protect you." It looks as if it tears her heart open to confess this. I lean forward and bury my face in her midriff and the words I say are only for her.

"Of course you did. You are my mountain girl" I pull back and look at her. "If you'll still have me?"

"Yes. Yes, I will."


End file.
